Toast Software Engineer candidates report recruiter screening, live coding, and later technical and behavioral conversations. Prepare for stock-profit or nested-structure problems, restaurant-domain design, follow-up questions, and clear reasoning.
$141K
Avg. Base Comp
$263K
Avg. Total Comp
5-6 rounds
Typical Rounds
2-3 weeks
Process Length
Toast Software Engineer interviews reported here begin with a recruiter conversation or initial screen, then move into live coding or a technical discussion. Several candidates encountered approachable algorithmic prompts, including stock buy-and-sell profit and palindrome validation. The important pattern is not just arriving at working code. Candidates describe interviewers asking why a method was chosen, changing a solved stock prompt into a variation, and probing implementation semantics. Explain each choice as you make it, including assumptions, complexity, and the reasoning behind the implementation.
Later interviews can be broader. Candidates reported a web API system-design exercise, implementing a feature in an iOS app, and reasoning through restaurant-related business logic such as dividing an order balance among seats while handling rounding correctly. Practice structuring an answer around the required behavior, data model, interfaces, and edge cases. Be ready to discuss what you would improve after producing a valid first solution.
Behavioral conversations with engineering, project, or hiring leaders also appear in several reports. Keep concise examples ready about past projects, ownership, collaboration, difficult situations, and why the role interests you. Some candidates encountered substantial follow-up questioning, so make your assumptions explicit and ask clarifying questions aloud. One candidate reported a two-to-three-week process involving five or six rounds, while other accounts describe different loop sizes, so scheduling and the exact interview mix may vary.
Synthesized from 9 candidate reports by our editorial team.
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Topics based on recent interview experiences.
Featured question at Toast, Inc.
Find the maximum profit from at most two stock buy/sell transactions
| Question | |
|---|---|
| Bagging vs Boosting | |
| Hurdles In Data Projects | |
| String Palindromes | |
| Distributed Authentication Model | |
| Client Solution Pushback | |
| 2nd Highest Salary | |
| Empty Neighborhoods | |
| Top Three Salaries | |
| Merge Sorted Lists | |
| Closest SAT Scores | |
| Subscription Overlap | |
| Rolling Bank Transactions | |
| Monthly Customer Report | |
| Top 3 Users | |
| Random SQL Sample | |
| Top 5 Turnover Risk | |
| Minimum Change | |
| String Shift | |
| Customer Orders | |
| Raining in Seattle | |
| Comments Histogram | |
| Find the First Non-Repeating Character in a String | |
| Scrambled Tickets | |
| Flight Records | |
| Prime to N | |
| P-value to a Layman | |
| Retailer Data Warehouse | |
| Over 100 Dollars | |
| Upsell Transactions |
Synthesized from candidate reports. Individual experiences may vary.
Candidates report a recruiter screen or initial call covering their background, the role, and sometimes compensation expectations. Prepare a concise introduction and a clear explanation of why the Toast Software Engineer role fits your experience.
Candidates report HackerRank or LeetCode-style coding prompts, including stock-profit, palindrome, and nested-structure problems. The task may be approachable, but interviewers may ask repeatedly why you selected a method or how you would improve a brute-force solution.
Later-stage reports include restaurant-domain system design, API or architecture discussions, code review, and extending an existing implementation. Candidates may be asked to reason through scalability, business rules, performance, tests, and edge cases rather than only present finished code.
Several candidates report conversations with engineering managers, product partners, or senior team members about prior projects, ownership, technical decisions, collaboration, and difficult situations. Keep examples focused enough to answer follow-up questions without losing the narrative.
